The Breakup of Yugoslavia

Evangelos Mahairas

Beginning in 1990 Germany and the United States sought and
achieved the breakup of Yugoslavia in two stages—1992-1995 and 1998-1999.
The German government aimed at this division because
it wanted to include as territory of its “vital interest” Slovenia and Croatia,
the most economically developed states of the Yugoslavian confederation.
These states were old allies in the Second World War (the Ustashi fascist
group in Croatia and the nationalists in Slovenia). Through them Germany
would achieve access to the Adriatic Sea.

The United States was interested in the more recently established
states (Bosnia, Serbia, the former Socialist Republic of Macedonia), which
controlled the only route from east to west and from north to south though
the Balkan mountains. The Balkan area, along with Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and
the Arab nations, forms a European-Middle East bloc, which the United States
wants to control (including the former states of the Soviet Union—Kazakhstan,
Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan) for the complete exploitation of the
great oil resources of the Caspian Sea.

Toward accomplishing this goal, one year before the dissolution
of the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia—specifically, on November 5, 1990—the
Congress of the United States passed bill 101-513 concerning “appropriation
of funds for operations abroad.” A paragraph in this bill specifically devoted
to Yugoslavia initiated that country's dissolution. In a single order, completely
without forewarning, the United States cut off all forms of credit and loans
to Yugoslavia in the event that within six months separate elections did
not take place in each state of the federation.

As a consequence, Yugoslavia—no longer able to conduct foreign
trade—was condemned to commercial bankruptcy, which reinforced the divisive
tendency of its states, especially that of the stronger. Another crucial
reason for the split was a provision in the bill that states holding separate
elections would receive direct economic aid (not channeled through the federation).
A third provision stated that even if separate elections did not take place,
the United States could (openly now, and in addition to actions of the CIA and
other secret services) economically support “democratic” factions or movements
by way of “emergency humanitarian aid and promotion of human rights.” Finally,
a fourth provision obliged the American representatives in all international
organizations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, etc.,
to use their vote and influence to have their organizations apply the particulars
of the bill.

The United States funded the states so as to dissolve the
federation. The U.S. also supported parties and movements that would promote
this process. Meanwhile, Germany shipped arms to Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and also trained “revolutionary corps” in special German camps
to be sent into the states at the proper time to face federal forces.

In February 1991, on the initiative of Germany and with
the support of countries decisively influenced by the U.S., like Great Britain,
Italy and the Netherlands, the European Community backed the U.S. decision:
If Yugoslavia did not announce multi-party elections, it would face economic
isolation.

In the meantime, Croatian and Slovenian fascist associations
in the U.S., Germany and Austria solicited money and arms, which they sent
to the northern Yugoslavian states. In March of 1991, fascist organizations
in Croatia demonstrated, calling for the overthrow of the socialist government
and the expulsion of all Serbs from Croatia. On March 5, 1991, they attacked
the federal army base at Gospic. Thus, civil war began.

On June 25, 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence.
In Croatia the extreme right wing party, “Democratic Union,” seized power.
This party used the flag, emblems, and slogans of the pro-Nazi Ustashi party.
Citizenship, property rights, employment, retirement benefits and passports
were granted only to Croats and to no other ethnic group. Thus, 300,000
Serbs who were under threat armed themselves.

Federal forces intervened in Slovenia, where units of the
autonomous militia had taken over posts on the Italian, Austrian and Hungarian borders.
At once, on Germany's initiative, the European Community threatened the
federal government with economic sanctions and obliged it to withdraw its
forces, given that within three months Slovenia and Croatia would undertake
independence and participate in negotiations for a “peaceful solution.”

Of course the negotiations failed, and these two states,
armed by Germany, officially declared their independence in October 1991.
First Germany hastened to accord diplomatic recognition; then the other
European countries and the USA, as well as the European Community in January
1992.

This recognition of independence reinforced the tendency
to separation in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Muslim party, headed by Aliya Izetbegovic,
was in charge there. Its program was the establishment of theocratic Muslim
rule and the expulsion of Serbs and Croats from Bosnia. Serbs were then
thirty-one percent of the Bosnia population. Supported by Serbia and ethnic
groups, they were prepared for conflict, ready to oppose whatever the European
Community presented to Cyrus Vance from the USA and Lord Owen of the European
Community as a “peace plan for Bosnia.”

In the meantime, the UN Security Council, with the approval
of Motion Number 757/1992, established sanctions against the Yugoslavian
Federation as responsible for civil war within its territory. In May 1992,
the UN General Assembly granted membership to Slovenia and Croatia, and
on September 22, 1992, it expelled the Yugoslavian Federation. The result
of these acts was the cessation of operations by the Yugoslavian Army against
Slovenia and Bosnia. The civil war, however, continued till 1995.

In 1993, American officers undertook training of the Croatian army,
which was now armed by the United States. In return the U.S. received bases
on the Croatian islands of the Adriatic. American officers also took on
training the Bosnian army as well as directing operations against the Bosnian
Serbs who were besieging Sarajevo. Finally, NATO intervened supporting Bosnia with
bombing from 1993 to 1995. NATO’s pressure forced the Bosnian Serbs, who
were also pressured by Milosevic, to accept the conducting of “peace negotiations”
at Dayton, Ohio, where a neo-colonial agreement was drawn up involving two
points—the establishment of a strong force of 60,000 NATO troops in Bosnia
and the writing of the “Bosnian Constitution.”

According to this Constitution, Bosnia was made up of three
democratic states—Muslim, Croat and Serbo-Bosnian—under the supreme authority
of the Swedish official appointed by the UN Security Council, who had full
executive powers in all matters and even the right to reject the decisions
of the three local governments as well as to overrule the prime ministers
and the appointed ministers. This supreme official would work in close cooperation
with the Supreme Military Council as well as with various sources of funding
or gifts. The Security Council, in turn, appointed an “Associate Director
of Police” who would be under the head Director and would have a force of
1,700 policemen at his disposal.

The economic policies of the country would be controlled
by the officers of Bretton Woods and the European Bank of Reconstruction
and Development. The first Director of the Central Bank of the country was
appointed by the International Monetary Fund. And neither he nor those succeeding
him would be citizens of Bosnia or Herzegovina, or of a neighboring state.

On August 3, 1995, Croat forces supported by the U.S. and
headed by an American general launched a decisive attack in Krajina, expelling
300,000 Serbs, killing 14,000 people, and burning tens of thousands of Serbian
homes as well as Orthodox churches and monasteries.

the role of nato

According to a statement of the Pentagon published in the
New York Times on March 8, 1992, “The first aim [of the United States] is
to block the appearance of a new adversary. … First, the U.S. must show
the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds
the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire
to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate
interests. … Finally, we must also maintain the necessary means to overthrow
potential adversaries, ambitious to attain a broader local or global role.”
In Europe, specifically, this plan foresees that: “It is of fundamental
importance to preserve NATO as the primary instrument of Western defense
and security as well as a channel of exercising American influence and its
participation in issues of European security. … We must seek to prevent
the emergence of European-only security arrangements which would undermine
NATO.”

Applying these views, the United States torpedoed the European
Community’s proposals for the peaceful solution of the Bosnian problem (the
Vance-Owen plan of 1992 and the Vance-Stolemberg plan of 1993) in order
to impose its own plan (the Dayton Agreement).

In the meantime, bases were established in Albania, the
former Socialist Republic of Macedonia and Hungary, and NATO aimed to extend
its sphere to the socialist countries of Eastern Europe and the Baltic states,
for the full encirclement of Russia and the access of the United States
to the Caspian Sea. According to American journalists, the Danube is more
important for Europe than the Mississippi is for commerce in the United
States. Thus, all the countries in the Danube valley must be brought under
the NATO umbrella and thereby under the influence (and exploitation) of
the USA.

This is the reason that, although the Yugoslavian Federation
had essentially broken up in 1995 (Serbia and Montenegro alone remained
in the federation), any peaceful settlement in Bosnia was excluded and NATO
intervention took place, resulting in the total success of American plans
for its dominance in the Balkans. The Serbian opposition persisted, however.
It had to be eliminated.

For this purpose the United States, Germany, Austria and
other countries armed ethnic Albanian groups. In Kosovo and southern Serbia
units of the “Kosovo Liberation Army” (UCK are the initials in Albanian)
had been forming with uniforms and arms provided by the U.S. Army, funded
by the CIA as well as international aid. A continuous flow of arms and military
supplies came from Germany.

Because these units were not strong enough to defeat the
Serbian forces, the Western forces developed unprecedented propaganda concerning
supposed genocide against the Albanians in the Kosovo area. They finally
decided on direct NATO intervention with horrendous aerial bombardment (31,000
bombs, ammunition with depleted uranium), which forced Serbia to submit.

Western propaganda, as it had been throughout the Bosnian
civil war, was as effective as the depleted uranium weapons. There were
daily reports in all the mass media against Serbia, involving, for example,
the bomb that exploded in a Sarajevo market (which finally proved to be
an act of provocation to invite NATO intervention). Their accusations of
the rape of Muslim women, which from the fall of 1992 to the spring of 1993
scandalized western news broadcasts citing figures of 100,000, but finally
with research reduced significantly to 40,000, later to 4,000 and finally
to only seven women who testified to being victims.

These false or exaggerated reports provoked widespread outrage
in western public opinion and among blindfolded “human welfare organizations,”
which saw criminal acts only on the part of Bosnian Serbs. The Muslims and
Croat militaries were presented as angelic in behavior, even though they
executed unarmed Serbs, raped women, and burned homes, churches and monasteries.
It is significant that in the Special Tribunal formed to judge war crimes
in Bosnia, sixty Serbs were indicted but only six Bosnians and Croats.

In turn, regarding Kosovo the Western media reported that
the Serbs expelled 300,000 ethnic Albanians, committed mass killings of
unarmed citizens and all sorts of atrocities. Finally it was shown that
prior to the NATO bombings only some 20,000 to 25,000 people had taken refuge
in Albania and the former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia. After the onset
of the bombing more than 250,000 ethnic Albanians had fled to save themselves
from the bombs. As for genocide, the “mass graves” about which there were
daily references in the Western media were never found.

To be sure, there was the atrocity of Srebrenica, but on
the opposing side there were the atrocities of Bihac and Krajina, about
which not a word appeared in the Western press, just as there were no references
either during the course of its militia action or after the bombing to the
crimes of the UCK against Serbs and other ethnic groups in Kosovo, which
the UCK called “police duties”! These actions put into effect the total
removal of Serbs, Gypsies, Turks and Jews from Kosovo through killings,
burning of villages, churches and monasteries, and unprecedented terrorism.

But for the UCK there, “purification of Kosovo” was not
enough. Its action was extended to the area of Presovo (southern Serbia),
though without success, since there the UCK faced the Serbian army, and
to the former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia. There of course the UCK
would disband with the complete cooperation of NATO, the USA and the European
Community. The problem was whether the UCK would stop there or extend its
action. That depended on the U.S. agenda for the region. The UCK could have
been used as a means of exerting pressure on Greece to compromise on the
issues of Cyprus and the Aegean Sea. Greece's allies had been habitually
involved in such “friendly” actions from the time of the establishment of
modern Greece up to today.

the role of the
un security council

For the illegal (criminal) acts of NATO in Yugoslavia, enormous
responsibilities are borne by the United Nations Security Council, which
violated virtually all the regulations of Articles 44-50 of the UN Charter. According
to Article 46 of the Charter, plans to use armed force will depend on the
Security Council in consultation with the Committee of the Military Council
of Article 47. This power is not relegated to NATO or “any other” military
alliance. The Military Council of the UN would never permit the use of bombs
with depleted uranium or bombing of unarmed civilians, schools, nurseries,
hospitals and churches, as NATO did in Yugoslavia.

Moreover, the Security Council established the ad hoc International
Tribunal to judge war crimes in Bosnia and Kosovo. But the UN Charter nowhere
provides the right to establish such a court. Article 92 founded the International
Court based in The Hague. Its members are elected by the General Assembly
and the Security Council from a list of the permanent Administrative Court
that was founded by The Hague agreement of 1907.

This Administrative Court can assemble a unit that can render
judgments concerning a particular issue, in agreement, however, with regulations
(Article 26, par. 3, of its charter). The expenses of this court would be
covered by the UN in a manner determined by the General Assembly.

Thus, the Security Council does not have the right to establish
an ad hoc court. That Court is illegal. It is a court of expediency and
its mission was to serve the political purposes of the powers that supported
its establishment. It is significant that its expenses are covered not by
the United Nations but by “benefactors” from the U.S., from multi-national
corporations and entrepreneurs like George Soros! The manner of establishment
and funding also belies its manner of functioning.

Milosevic’s abduction in violation of the Constitution and
justice system of Yugoslavia was the first step. The justice system would
be completely put to shame in what followed. However, the greatest crime
of the U.S. and its followers (Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands,
Italy) was the debasing of the UN. The next step will be its dissolution.
For the hopes of the peoples as expressed in the prologue of its charter
are not in agreement with the imperialist “New World Order.”

“We the Peoples of the United Nations, determined to save
coming generations from the scourge of war, which twice during our time
brought insufferable pain to mankind; once more proclaiming our belief in
human rights, in human dignity and worth, in equal rights of men and women
and large and small nations, we unite our efforts to achieve these goals.”

The imperialists, however, desire global rule and not the
equality of small and large nations. They wish to impose their will with
war using bombardment and any other criminal means (Vietnam, the Gulf War,
Bosnia, Yugoslavia and later). From their position in the UN they license
NATO as the supreme arbiter of all international crises over the length
and breadth of the earth, though it is not an international organization
but a military alliance of Western forces.

Evangelos Mahairas was president
of the Association of Athens Lawyers (Bar Association) Athens from 1981-1984,
honorary president since 1985, elected in 1986 president of the Greek Peace
Movement and in 1990 president of the World Peace Council. He is a fighter
for peace, human rights and the environment.

The
book HIDDEN ADENDA, U.S./NATO TAKEOVER OF YUGOSLAVIA, from which this piece
is excerpted, is available for purchase online from www.leftbooks.com.